INCREDIBLE: Gonzalez Fired U.S. Attorneys Over ACORN?

Democrats charge that the Bush administration went to extraordinary and perhaps illegal lengths to pursue voter fraud allegations.

Last month, a report from the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility found that former attorney general Alberto Gonzales fired the United States attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias, in December of 2006 after top Republicans in the state complained that Iglesias hadn’t aggressively pursued voter-fraud cases after the 2004 election.

It was the ACORN issue that partly led to Iglesias being fired.

Patrick Rogers, a New Mexico Republican activist, complained in a March 2006 e-mail to a Justice Department official that Iglesias and his assistant "were not much help during the ACORN fraudulent registration debacle" in the 2004 election when the group was accused of submitting fraudulent registrations in the state.

That same motive — insufficient zeal in prosecuting alleged vote fraud — may have played a role in the firing of the United States attorney in Seattle, John McKay.

But Republicans say the U.S. attorneys controversy doesn’t undercut their fundamental contention: Voter fraud has occurred and may occur again this year.

While Republicans accuse Democrats of benefiting from voter fraud, Democrats fire back that Republicans are trying to suppress the Democratic vote by too stringent rules on voter identification.